In the Penguin world

The past decade has seen an explosion of Indian writing in English and foreigners writing about India. As would be expected, some of it is excellent, most of it of middling quality and some frankly bad.

It goes to Penguin India's credit that most of the books it has published have fallen in the top two categories and that, barring a brief period of bad proof-reading, its reputation has not suffered greatly from its growing productivity or the departure of its former chief David Davidar to Penguin Books' Canadian outfit.

In that sense, this three-volume collection of its non-fiction writing "" a companion to a three-volume set of fiction writing "" is a justified celebration of the 20th anniversary of this publishing house.

The books are an excellent marketing gambit too since they offer the reader both a showcase of its best-sellers and bestselling authors and a potted history of the publisher's growth in India.

The publisher's note that prefaces each volume has charmingly set out the early days in a two-bedroom flat in New Delhi: "Penguin India's most valuable asset was a boardroom table made of teak, at which strategies were devised, contracts signed and commitments made."

Since Penguin set up shop in India long before, as the note puts it, "the world wasn't in thrall to India", this collection provides a window to India's transformation and a handy guide to some fine academic research.

The editors have, rightly, not chosen to put a theme to each volume. Thankfully, they have also avoided the temptation to "celebrate" India, an infectious predilection that appears to have infected the country's middle class.

Nor have they done the conventional thing of reproducing the excerpts in chronological sequence.

Instead, they have provided what appears to be a random choice of writing in each volume "" the publisher's note does not explain how the collections were put together.

Yet, this works because it allows the reader to move in and out of the decades and gain a richer idea of India.

So it is interesting, for example, to step out of a chapter of Harivansh Rai's dignified autobiography In the Afternoon of Time, set at the time of independence, into an essay by MindTree's Subroto Bagchi's celebration of India's brave new IT revolution.

Rereading an excerpt from Elisabeth Bumiller's May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons acquires a whole new meaning when read a few essays after Gita Aravamudan's chilling "Our Missing Girls".

A selection of R K Laxman's peerless cartoons starring the hapless Common Man provides a poignant complement to writings by Ramachandra Guha and Suketu Mehta.

The volumes appear to be designed for the occasional read, allowing the reader to cherry-pick. As a "best of" collection, the compilations are of uneven quality. This is only to be expected, but perhaps that is hardly the point.

The kaleidoscope of politics, business, personal histories, films, religion, society, environment, travel, history and sport that the three volumes throw together offers snapshots of the phenomenon that is India "" sometimes exasperating, sometimes exhilarating, always interesting.

As a commemoration of an Indian anniversary, it is probably more appropriate than any conventional and mawkish celebration.

20 YEARS OF PENGUIN INDIA
THE NON-FICTION COLLECTION
(IN THREE VOLUMES)

PAGES: X+459; XII+487; X+450
Rs 395 each